From Here, We Go On
by on rooftops
Summary: She refused to be an afterthought. She shone, she burned, she blistered—she threw off sparks of intensity. — Harry/Ginny, 8th Year - For Amy


**A/N:** Happy belated birthday, Amy! Love you!  
And much thanks to Ela for reading through this and her mad encyclopedia-skills. Also, for pointing out the sappiness (which I may or may not have made better).  
**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter is not mine.  
Lyrics at the dividers are from Filter's "The Trouble with Angels."

**From Here, We Go On  
**_Là, __tout fume, tout brule, tout brille, tout bouillonne, tout flambe, s'évapore, s'éteint, se rallume, étincelle, pétille et se consume.  
_– Honoré de Balzac – La Fille aux yeux d'or –

_i._ _when you take a better, second look miracles fade_

She refused to be an afterthought.  
She shone, she burned, she blistered – she threw off sparks of intensity. She was so much _more. _ More than what the _Prophet _and _Witch Weekly_ claimed her to be, with their blatant "comma and's."

It was bad enough when _Witch Weekly_ misspelled her name in the caption of a photo snapped when she was looking particularly unattractive, her hair in two braids and her freckles bursting like stars from her pale cheeks. The reporter seemed to have a fixation with Canadian spellings, or maybe she had done it on purpose: "Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger, and the youngest Weasley, Ginnie, were sighted leaving the Ministry of Magic on Wednesday, where Harry Potter recently turned down a position in the Auror Department, claiming that he wants to 'Work his way up, just like everyone else.' If he weren't still a teenager, readers, I'd send him daily marriage proposals." Or maybe the woman was really just mental.

But at least the Canadian-fixated reporter for _Witch Weekly _had bothered to figure out her name. The _Prophet _didn't give a damn about her at all.  
"Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger, and the youngest Weasley arrived at King's Cross for what will be the last year at Hogwarts for each of them. The three older students are rejoining their classmates to repeat their seventh year following the ravages of the War."

She tossed the paper to the side, where it just missed knocking over her tea cup. Hermione glanced over, her concerned eyes scanning Ginny's face, but then Ron put his arm around her and murmured something. She stood and followed him out of the Great Hall without a second look at Ginny.

"You all right, Gin?" Harry asked, reaching for the _Prophet_ and piling it with the rest of Hermione's post, which he would – _of course – _dutifully deliver when it was safe to approach her again.

"Sure." Ginny forced a smile and picked at her bacon. "Just tired of being on the front page, I guess." Tired of being forgotten on the front page.

Harry rolled his eyes and ran one hand through his dark hair – which her mother had attempted and failed to trim before they all returned to school – so the ends stuck up in achingly familiar disarray. "I guarantee that you'll be on it as long as you hang out with me – I mean, us."

Ginny sighed, tapping her chin thoughtfully and saying in a mock considering tone, "Maybe I ought to find some new friends, then. Some foreigners who weren't involved in this whole war business at all."

"Might be best," and Harry's tone fell short of teasing.

"Harry." Ginny met his gaze levelly. "We really need to – "

"No." He shook his head. "Not now. Can't we just leave it, for now? Talk about Quidditch, or something."

"Fine," because that was how it had been all summer – Harry didn't want to discuss them as _them_ and Ginny let him push it off because she needed to be sure of him and of herself before she would force that topic.

And she wasn't all that sure of either of them, after all of it.

"Fine," she repeated. "Are you disappointed that eighth years can't go out for the team?" McGonagall had decided that those students who returned to repeat (or experience, as was the case for Harry, Ron, and Hermione) their seventh year at Hogwarts wouldn't be allowed to play Quidditch. It made sense, Ginny thought, since the actual seventh years wouldn't have had the opportunity to lead their teams if the eighth years played, and the younger students wouldn't have gotten any time to play if the more experienced students remained on the teams another year. She glanced down at the Quidditch Captain badge on her jumper and looked up to see that Harry was smiling at her.

"Of course I don't. It'll be brilliant watching you lead us to destroy Slytherin, and all the other teams."

Ginny grinned. "I'd better, or you know Ron'll be attacking me after every game, lecturing me about how I should have played."

"You can probably ask Hermione to keep him occupied so he won't even notice if we lose. Which won't happen, Gin. You know you're a superb chaser, right?"

She shrugged. "I'm all right." Nothing compared to what she'd need to be, if she wanted to play after Hogwarts. "Don't say I'm brilliant, Harry. I haven't played Quidditch – actual Quidditch, not just against you and Ron and George – in over a year. I might be miserable at it."

He reached across the table and took her hand, squeezing it gently. "No. I know, Gin. I know you'll be a thousand times better than _miserable_."

She pulled her hand from his with an apologetic smile that hid the hurt anger blistering beneath her skin. He wasn't allowed to touch her, not until he'd gotten over the scars the war had left on his soul, and hers – not until he took both of her hands in his and said, _Fuck it all. I love you._

Ginny wished she could tell him that until that happened, until he said those words, her skin, her lips, her eyes, were very much off limits. _She_ was very much off limits. But she couldn't tell him, because he wouldn't let her talk about anything less surface than bloody Quidditch, and so she told _herself_ daily. Three months had engraved the idea that Harry wasn't allowed near her in the ridges of her brain; her heart beat with the knowing of it.

She pushed back from the table rather than suffer through the awkward silence that would no doubt follow her pulling away from him. "I'm going up to Transfiguration, I want to talk to McGonagall about something. See you at dinner?"

"Yeah," Harry smiled softly. "See you later, Gin."

She waved one hand over her shoulder at him and tugged at her braid with the other. Conversations with Harry had turned painful and suffocating lately – everything they didn't say settled in the air around them, polluting every breath with unshared secrets.

She had expected it to get better at school, but two days in and she was longing for the companionship they had somehow achieved at the Burrow over the summer. And all right, their renewed bond had had a lot to do with warning glances sent whenever one of them approached a room or a cupboard that Ron and Hermione had claimed, but at least they could bond over _something_, even if it was the awkwardness that the other two had created when they started snogging in inappropriate places. At Hogwarts, there was little chance that they'd run into Hermione and Ron, and very little chance that Harry would need to warn Ginny, or Ginny would need to warn Harry, about the specific location of the couple.

Here, they had lost the only link they had forged after the war. Hogwarts forced their pre-war emotions into the spotlight, and Ginny was uncomfortable with the knowledge that for some reason, those emotions had turned taboo.

At least, she considered as she tapped lightly at the door to McGonagall's classroom, she still had Quidditch.

_ii. Looks like the rain is falling; the truth is changing. The sky is falling down._

The first Quidditch match of the season did not go quite as Ginny had planned – she didn't fly as flawlessly as she had before the war, her beaters both went for a bludger that was long gone by the time the two third years reached the spot and collided, the keeper missed a save that a nervous Ron would have gotten – if it hadn't been for their seeker, Gryffindor would have suffered a mortifying loss to Ravenclaw.

Harry told her, "We all have off games, Ginny. It'll be fine; you guys'll just train harder and you'll come back and Slytherin won't stand a chance. I promise."

She whirled and snapped at him, her pale hands balled into fists against her mud splattered red and gold Quidditch robes, "Don't promise me anything, Harry. Especially not about _this_."

He held his hands out. "Whoa, Gin. It's all right. It's just Quidditch."

Maybe one of those things that Luna was always going on about – nargles or wrackspurts or something – had gotten into his brain. "_Just Quidditch?_ Harry, did you see how horribly I flew out there? You must have. How can you even say that? It's never been 'just Quidditch' for me – for _us_."

"But, I mean," he stuttered, one hand back to his hair, which lay flat against his head in the rain. "In the long run, it is just a game. You know? It's not life and death, or anything."

Oh. The bloody war. Ginny knew she shouldn't have been surprised, but she often wondered how Voldemort, when he was alive and constantly after Harry, had had such comparatively little impact on his everyday life. Now, with Voldemort dead, with his title as "Savior of the Wizarding World" fully cemented, Harry's every other statement came back to his past.

"No. But it is important to me." She turned away from him and stalked toward the broom shed, rain dripping from the tail of her Firebolt – a gift from Harry, which she still didn't feel quite right about – and onto the already soaked backs of her legs.

He didn't follow her, and she wasn't sure whether she was grateful or upset that he was so easy to dissuade.

She came back to the Gryffindor common room late that night, so late that only Harry was still awake, sitting in one of the overstuffed armchairs by the fire and watching the portrait hole.

"Are you okay?" His voice was strained, like he didn't really want to know the answer, like he half-expected her to explode at him again. Dark circles made his eyes seem brighter than usual, he was clearly exhausted, and _okay_, Ginny realized, Harry had had a miserable life. She shouldn't have expected Voldemort's death to signal the beginning of her fairytale. She shouldn't have expected a fairytale at all.

"I'm okay. I'm sorry for blowing up at you, earlier."

Harry shrugged, stretching his arms above his head. "I get it. I wasn't really being very helpful." Ginny snorted, and he raised an eyebrow. "Fine, I wasn't being helpful at all. Is that better?"

"I appreciate that you were trying, though. Were you waiting up for me?" He had stood as she crossed the common room, and was heading for the boys' staircase as she stepped onto the girls'.

He nodded sheepishly, "I just wanted to be sure we – you – were all right."

"Thanks." She smiled at him. "Really. But you don't need to worry about me, Harry. I'm okay."

"Just…just let me care, Gin."

She wanted to remind him that she would let him do a lot more than _care_ if he wanted to; this whole mess was not her doing. She wanted to drop all the truths between them – she wanted to take his hands in hers and find his lips with hers and map his tongue with hers. But what she wanted didn't seem to matter. So she didn't respond to Harry, and he didn't need a response. He took silences as assurances and words as betrayals.

She wanted to distract herself from thinking about him with school, but the first term of her last year at Hogwarts wasn't difficult – Ginny felt as though she should be stressing about NEWTs, but compared to the previous year there was so little to stress about – so she focused all of her attention on Quidditch. The Gryffindor team had a practice scheduled that rivaled the mythic Wood's at his most manic. The difference between Ginny and Wood, though, was that Wood had led the Gryffindors to continuous victories.

The morning of their second match, this one against Slytherin, Ginny hesitated at the front doors to the castle and stared out into the chilly late November air. Harry came up beside her and nudged her gently in the small of her back. "Don't you think you ought to get out there?"

"We're going to lose." She sighed, reaching up to smooth her hair back into its tight bun. "We're going to lose and everyone will know that it is my fault."

"If you lose," Harry said, leading her down the steps and across the grounds towards the Quidditch pitch, "And I don't think that you will, but _if_ you do, then it will not be your fault. Your team will have lost the match, but no one will blame you."

They reached the locker room and she turned to face him, her lower lip caught between her teeth and her eyes glinting multi-toned in the sunlight. "I can't fly anymore."

"Yes, you can. You've known how to fly since you were six, Gin. Or younger. I'm pretty sure that you and Charlie and George and Ron and…and Fred…were all born with the ability to fly. You just need to go out there and do it. Stop thinking so much."

He reached over to ruffle her hair, but she caught his arm before his hand touched her head. "Don't, you'll mess it up."

Harry laughed. "Like the wind won't?"

"Not if I play as miserably as I've been playing in practice. I should go." She turned before he could quote more inspirational clichés.

And she didn't play _quite_ as miserably as she had been playing in practice, really. She flew better, but the quaffle still slipped from her hands and fell straight into the Slytherin chaser's, and her fingers felt dead on the Firebolt, like all those years of flying had led to a separation between herself, the broom, and the air surrounding them.

No one was surprised when Slytherin won. Ginny was surprised at the lack of reaction – apparently rumors of her shit flying, of her shit team, had spread down the halls of the school. They had probably started in Gryffindor, with the complaints of her own players, and had somehow gone straight from there to Slytherin. And the Slytherins would have been sure to spread the news of the great Gryffindor's fallen Quidditch team.

"It doesn't matter, right? It's just Quidditch," Ginny muttered to Harry, when she got back to the Common Room that night after eleven to find it empty except for him.

"Come here." He held out his arms to her, but she shook her head and continued past him, up the stairs that he couldn't climb, and didn't let the tears fall until her head was buried under her pillow and she had cast a silencing charm around her four poster.

Ginny didn't talk to Harry again for two weeks, and then she only did because speaking to Harry was marginally preferable to speaking to Ron.

"So." She fell into her seat at the house table and reached for the teapot. "I need to talk to you about Christmas holidays."

Harry turned away from Ron and Hermione, who kept talking as if he were still listening, and raised an eyebrow at her. "What about Christmas?"

"You're going to the Burrow, right? You and Ron and Hermione?"

Harry glanced over at the other two as he answered, "Sort of. Ron and Hermione are visiting Hermione's parents for the first weekend and I'm spending it with Andromeda and Teddy, but the rest of the two weeks we'll be at the Burrow. Aren't you going to be there?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Mum sent me an owl two weeks ago saying that Bill and Percy and George will all be at the Burrow, but that Charlie couldn't get time off work."

"Yeah, Ron told me. That's awful for Charlie."

Ginny nodded. "I know. So I want to go stay with Charlie over Christmas, because it isn't fair for anyone to be alone on Christmas, especially…especially our first one without Fred."

Harry stared at her in silence for a moment. "That sounds like a good idea to me. Have you told your mum?"

"No. And I'm not planning on telling her. I've asked McGonagall if I can Floo out of the fireplace in her office and she's told me I can, provided I get written permission from my parents. I've already asked Dean to forge Mum's signature, so that's not a problem. I was hoping that you'd be able to deliver a letter to Mum for me, but if you're not getting there until Sunday, then maybe I'll just borrow Pig from Ron and send him off just before I leave."

"Don't you think your mum would let you go, though? Maybe you should just ask her."

"But what if she says no?" Ginny shook her head. "No. This'll work. Except…will you ask Ron to borrow Pig? I don't want to explain it to him. You know what a tattletale he can be."

Harry sighed. "Sure. Sure, I'll ask him."

Ginny left on the Thursday before Christmas – McGonagall had arranged some sort of easy international Floo for her that night, and none of her professors were planning anything too difficult for the last day of classes before the holidays – and Harry followed her up to McGonagall's office, reminding her of nonsensical things. Like, "The Hungarian Horntails are the toughest, but they're also my favorite" and "Dragon fire fucking hurts," and "Riding a dragon is not as fun as it looks, all right?"

"Harry." She turned in exasperation just before the gargoyle that marked the entrance to McGonagall's office. "I know. I'm not planning on spending all that much time with the dragons, so stop worrying."

"Let me worry, Gin. This way I'll be able to tell your mum that I sent you off with good advice."

Ginny rolled her eyes and said, "Four Houses" to the gargoyle. It stepped aside as she snapped, "You realize you're not my father, though, right? Or my brother?"

"I was _joking_, honestly." Harry sighed, following her up the staircase and into the warm office.

"Mr. Potter, I didn't realize you were accompanying Miss Weasley to Romania." McGonagall spoke coolly, and Harry blushed.

"I'm not," Harry said, "I just came to say goodbye."

"Right," McGonagall held a silver bowl out to Ginny and she reached inside and took a handful of green Floo Powder.

"See you in two weeks, Harry," Ginny said over her shoulder as she tossed the Powder into the fire.

"Wait, Gin, when you get back," Harry began, then faltered as she stepped into the fire.

She turned, and just before instructing the fire to take her to Charlie's reserve she said, "When I get back, we really need to talk."

And then she was gone and McGonagall was nodding in a self-satisfied way and shooing Harry from her office.

_iii. then it's back to life_

Charlie hadn't been expecting anyone to tumble out of his fireplace. He had thought his evening would consist of a quick meal and a few drinks with the other boys in the reserve's pub, maybe a quick snog that might turn into something more if he let it. Slightly less likely was the possibility that the Norwegian Ridgeback would break free and set fire to the mess hall, the one wooden building within a hundred miles of the reserve. So, no, he was really not prepared for the low coals glowing in his fireplace to suddenly shoot green flames up the chimney, nor for his little sister, who he hadn't seen since Fred's funeral, to fall onto the stone floor of his kitchen.

"Ginevra?" Shit. She hated that name. "Ginny? What are you doing here?"

"Hi!" She threw her arms around him and he patted her lightly on the back, looking over her head at the small bag she had tossed to the side when she arrived through the Floo.

"What are you doing here?" he repeated. "Is everyone okay?"

"Everyone's good." Overstatement, undoubtedly. "I just didn't want you to be alone for Christmas, and I didn't particularly want to go back to the Burrow, so I thought I'd come spend it here…if that's okay?"

Charlie blinked. "Well, I'll be working a lot." She looked lost – caught somewhere in the awkward place between superior confidence and desolate uncertainty – and he'd never really been able to deny her anything anyway. "But of course you can stay."

"Oh, good. Because otherwise I'd have been rather fucked."

Charlie raised his eyebrows. "Language, Ginevra."

"Come on, cool-older-brother-Charlie, I'm seventeen. I can say 'fuck' as often as I want to." She grinned at him. "In fact, I can even fuck whoever I want to."

Charlie grimaced. "Okay, one: you and Potter had better not be having sex; and two: I really don't want to hear – or think – about you sleeping with _anyone_."

"No worries, brother bear. I'm still as pure as new fallen snow, or whatever, and as for Harry and I – there's nothing going on there." She settled on the second chair at Charlie's table and Charlie sat back down, stretching his legs beneath the table and staring across it at his sister.

"What, he still hasn't asked you out?"

She shook her head. "And he refuses to talk about it. I swear, Charlie, if I didn't know what he's been through, I'd probably have killed him by now."

"Lucky Harry, he trades Voldemort for you."

Ginny shrugged. "When I stop being so patient, he'll definitely wish Voldemort was after him again." She took an apple that sat on the table beside Charlie's plate and crunched into it. "So what's new around here?" she asked after swallowing. "How're the lizards?"

"Not very lizard-like. I'll take you round to see them in the morning, if you'd like, but I'd rather you not hang around them if you're not with me."

"I really don't care for dragons all that much, so I guarantee you won't have to chase me away from them."

Charlie sighed, shaking his head in mock disappointment. "And here I was hoping that someone else in the family shared my love."

"Not me. I'll bring Harry next time, though, he's got some strange obsession with Hungarian Horntails."

"Well, he did fly against one in the Tournament – I imagine something like that would change his opinion on dragons." Charlie cut into his meat, which was nearly as rare as Bill took his, and added, "That reminds me. Mum told me you'd been made Quidditch Captain. Congratulations!"

Ginny chucked her apple core into the bin beside Charlie's icebox. "Thanks, but can we not talk about Quidditch? I've been off all year, and we just had the most humiliating loss to Slytherin, you don't even want to know."

Charlie nodded. "Sure. Sorry, though, that sucks."

"Whatever. It's not like I wanted to play after school, or anything." She bit her lip at the bitterness that edged her voice. He was staring at her, dissecting what she had said, and she knew from the way he inhaled that he knew. And he couldn't bring that secret out into the open, he _couldn't_, because if he did then it would never, ever come true.

Just as Charlie opened his mouth to shatter her future into broken dreams, the door to his home burst open and a pile of men shoved into the tiny kitchen area.

"You ready, Weasley? We've got to get to the pub soon if we want – oh, hello." The man at the front of the group had spoken, and his gray eyes widened just a bit when he noticed Ginny. "Who're you?"

"Obviously," a man toward the back of the group answered pompously, "That is Weasley's little sister, Girl Weasley."

"How is that obvious?" This one had burns across the right side of his face, and he smirked at Ginny as he said, "This girl is quite attractive while our dear Weasley is quite…not."

"_You_ wouldn't know," noted a fourth; he looked to be around thirty, and he was nearly too thin, with dark hair, pale skin, and gray eyes that reminded Ginny of early morning mist over the lake at school. "You don't go for blokes."

Ginny grinned and, realizing that Charlie was prepared to let his friends talk each other into silence, interrupted. "Mr. Pompous Arse back there had it right. I'm Ginny, Charlie's little sister."

Charlie pushed back from the table as he finally spoke, "Gin, this is Seth," the blond, "Devlin," the pompous one, "Christopher," the one with the burnt face, "Colin," the one who apparently found Charlie attractive, "Jeff," he waved slightly, "and Miles."

"Charmed, I'm sure," Ginny waved at them all.

"Oh, she's feisty, this one," Seth crowed, and Charlie rolled his eyes.

"Ginny is here to spend Christmas with me, and I swear if anyone – and I mean anyone – says anything even mildly disrespectful to her I will see to it that he's cleaning up dragon dung for a year."

"And what if you don't find out about it?" Christopher leered jokingly at Ginny, who smiled back.

"Then _I_ will see to it that he never has sex again."

Charlie snorted as Christopher paled and Colin smacked him lightly on the back. "Best keep your comments to yourself, mate."

"Best," Christopher repeated faintly.

"So I'm guessing this means you won't be joining us for drinks tonight?"

Ginny said, "You can go, Charlie, I didn't mean to mess up your plans."

"Don't be ridiculous, Gin. I haven't seen you in months, of course I don't want to go to the pub."

"Honestly, though, Charlie, if you want to – "

"When Weasley wants to do something, the whole world knows," Seth said. "Come on, guys, let's leave the redheaded duo to catch up."

"I'll see you all tomorrow," Charlie called after them as the group moved toward the door.

Just before the door swung shut, Colin called, "It was good meeting you, Ginny. We'll see you around."

"See you." She watched him leave before turning to Charlie to see that he was staring at her again. He opened his mouth to say something horrible, something _awful_, like, "You're never going to make it in professional Quidditch," or, even worse, "I'm sure if you try you'll be able to make any team you want." Either would destroy her.

But instead of breaking her dreams, he stretched and brought his plate to the sink. "You're all grown up, huh?"

She looked at him in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"All of that." He nodded at the door. "Most people who come here are pretty taken aback by the lot of us. You weren't."

"Charlie, I've got five older brothers. I know how to handle myself."

He stared at her sadly for a moment. "Yeah, I guess you do. It's so odd to hear you say that. Five brothers, I mean."

She stood slowly and crossed the room, picking up her bag by one worn leather strap and tugging her right hand through her hair. "Life is a lot less…less everything, without him, you know?"

"I know." Charlie looked at his little sister, standing looking so lost in his kitchen, and wished he could say something that would make her stop fidgeting. Instead, he asked something he had been wondering since he left home at the beginning of summer, "Is George all right?"

Ginny closed her eyes for a fraction of a second. "He's better. He's not brilliant, of course. But then, who could be?"

"You're lying," Charlie accused softly. "You're bad at it."

"I'm hoping. I haven't talked to George since August, and Mum hasn't said anything about him in her letters. I'm hoping he's better, because otherwise…"

"Otherwise we lost two brothers." Charlie sighed. "I don't have a guestroom, but you can have my bed, if you'd like. I'll take the sofa."

"No, that's fine." Ginny smiled, grateful for the change in subject. "I'm fine with the couch."

"Ginevra, just take the bed. Please."

She nodded and he led the way up the narrow flight of stairs and into one of the two rooms on the second floor. "The other's the bathroom," he said. His double bed took up most of the space in his bedroom. He had covered it with one of their mother's knitted blankets and two pillows in plaid pillowcases. It looked lonely.

Ginny turned to look at her brother, a long, considering look that he returned levelly. He broke the silence finally, "Do you want to play a game of Exploding Snap?"

Ginny, who was so used to taking silent cues she sometimes thought that words didn't even matter anymore, nodded. "Yeah, yeah, Exploding Snap sounds good."

Because they had made a mutual promise not to talk about the things that neither of them wanted to discuss: loneliness (or the possible lack of it) and aspirations (or the possible dissolution of them).

Charlie shook Ginny's shoulder the next morning before the sun had fully hit his cottage, asking in a gruff early-morning tone, "Are you going to come with me to feed the dragons? We'll need to leave in ten minutes."

"Merlin," Ginny mumbled, rolling from beneath the covers with her eyes still closed, scrabbling in the self-induced darkness for a jumper. "Please say you've got something hot to drink?"

"Coffee."

Ginny grimaced. "No tea?"

"Coffee," Charlie repeated as he left the room, shutting the door behind him.

"Coffee it is, then," Ginny muttered to the empty room, opening her eyes enough to snatch her jeans and a pair of mittens and a hat that her mum had knitted out of an atrocious pink colored yarn and leaving the room with a backward wave of her wand to straighten up Charlie's bedcovers.

"I've got sugar," Charlie said when Ginny entered the kitchen and picked up a ceramic mug from the counter. She stared down into the dark liquid and shook her head.

"I'll just take it like this."

Charlie shrugged. "It tastes better with sugar."

"The taste doesn't matter. It's hot. Now, am I going to meet some dragons or not?"

"I thought you didn't like dragons?" Charlie shoved his feet into some black leather work boots and grabbed an extra pair from the basket by the door. "Can you shrink these down?" he asked as he tossed them to her.

"Yeah." She was well-practiced in making her brothers' clothes size-appropriate, "I don't like dragons, but I do want to see them."

"Curious?"

"Very." She grinned, "Mum's going to want a full report about what's been keeping you away from us all these years."

"Ginny," Charlie said in a warning tone, "Please – "

"I mean," she interrupted, sitting down to slip on the newly sized boots as she spoke, "I'm sure she'll want to hear all about the Hungarian Horntails and Norwegian Ridgebacks and I don't know any other dragons, really, so I'm going to stop there before I make a fool out of myself. I'm sure Mum doesn't know much more about them than me, and I'd really like to be able to tell her all about them. The dragons," she added for good measure, tugging tightly at the laces before she got to her feet. "Nothing else. Certainly not how awful you are at Exploding Snap." She bit her lip, forcing her babbling to stop and looking nervously up at her brother.

"Right. Let's go."

She followed Charlie out into the biting December air silently, and neither of them spoke until they stood before an enclosure about a kilometer from Charlie's home. "We've only got four in captivity right now. Mostly, our dragons roam the reserve and people know not to come into the area – there're protective spells around it to keep Muggles out, of course. But these four were injured during a recent avalanche, and we need to keep watch over them to be sure they heal fine. Can you stay back here? I'll come get you after we've fed them." He glanced at her. "If you're feeling at all squeamish, you might not want to watch. They eat deer."

Ginny nodded and watched as Charlie approached a group of men near the fence; Colin was there, and he waved at Ginny before turning back to the rest of the group, and Christopher and one of the others from the night before whose name she couldn't quite remember. The men spoke together for a few minutes, and then they went into a nearby shed, which Ginny hadn't noticed before. The men all floated deer before them when they came back out, and she was forcefully reminded of the deatheaters on the night of the Quidditch World Cup.

As Colin floated the first deer over the fence, a bright green, sharp toothed, jagged scaled, smoke exhaling dragon thundered up the snow covered hill, and three others followed, each of them just as large. Ginny turned as the first deer hit the ground and the first dragon went after it. She had five older brothers, she told herself, she wasn't squeamish, obviously. She just didn't like blood.

Or, she realized as she hastily cast a noise-canceling charm on her ears, the noise that deer made while being eaten. Or the noise that dragons made while eating.

A few moments later she felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped, whirling to find Colin grinning down at her. She had instinctively raised her wand and she lowered it shamefacedly, swishing it slowly to cancel the Charm. "Sorry," she blushed. "I didn't want to hear…" She waved her hand at the dragons, which had all turned away from where a few bloodstains in the snow marked their morning meal and were making their way back to the hidden part of the enclosure.

"It's fine," Colin said, "Sorry for scaring you. Did you want to get closer, before they go off again?"

Ginny nodded. "Yeah." She followed Colin up to the fence, where Charlie and the others still stood, watching as the dragons moved away.

"The Ridgeback is still limping a bit," Charlie said, and the fourth – Miles, she thought – marked it down on a clipboard.

"The others look good, though," Christopher said, "And they all finished their deer. Thank Merlin. We should be able to let them go soon."

"Not big on the early breakfast thing?" Miles asked.

"Does anyone really enjoy sacrificing four deer a meal?" Charlie asked, "At least when they're out there the deer have a shot at survival." He waved his arm at the pine woods that surrounded the enclosure, and, it seemed, made up the whole reserve.

"Don't be such a wuss, Charlie," Colin joked.

"Oh, says the bloke who can't eat his own breakfast before we come out here," Charlie replied.

Miles interrupted Colin's sputtering beginnings of a response, "Who's on watch duty today?"

"Charlie and I are," Colin responded, "But I don't mind doing it alone so Charlie can spend the day with Ginny."

"Don't be ridiculous," Ginny said.

"Don't _you_ be ridiculous," Charlie said, seeming to include both Ginny and Colin in that sentiment. "Miles, I'll take all of your days for the week after New Years if you cover for me today? I was hoping to take Ginny flying."

"Of course. Wouldn't want ickle Colin here to have to spend the whole day watching dragons _alone_."

Colin scowled at him. "I'd have been fine."

"Of course you would have." Christopher turned to face his friends, his tone lecturing, "But it's against the law to have only one wizard on duty at a time. Who wants hot coffee from the mess hall?"

"Flying?" Ginny muttered as Charlie clasped Colin on the shoulder and led the way from the enclosure, into the forest and down a path that was nearly clear of snow, toward what she assumed was the mess hall.

"Yeah. It's beautiful up here." Charlie glanced down at her. "Stop looking at me like that, Gin. I'm not going to make you play Quidditch, or anything."

"I told you, I can't _fly_ anymore," she hissed, sticking her hands into the pockets of her jumper and glaring at him. "Can't we go, like, walking instead?"

"It's always better to be on a broomstick when dragons are around," Charlie pointed out. "Besides, you _can_ fly. Have you fallen off yet?"

They had reached the mess hall, and he tugged the wooden door open and held it, indicating that Ginny should step through first. Christopher was just behind them, and she muttered, "If this is some sort of plan to make me better or some shit, I'm not falling for it."

"Just go inside, Gin." Charlie nodded, and she glared at him one second longer before walking slowly into the warmth of the building and looking around.

Only one of the metal tables was occupied, and she tried to ignore the way the men had all turned to look at her when she walked in. Christopher had come in behind her. "Hey," he murmured as he put a hand on her shoulder and turned her to the empty side of the room. "Why don't you go over there? Charlie and I'll go get us all some food."

"Sure."

They joined her shortly, levitating trays overflowing with eggs and bacon and ham in front of them. Charlie set down a similarly filled plate in front of Ginny and she picked at it uninterestedly. "You guys don't get many girls up here, huh?"

"Not many." Christopher grinned. "Although they're probably all regretting the way they looked at you when you first came in now they realize you're related to Charlie. Which they'll certainly realize. I mean, look at your hair."

"It's red," Ginny said dryly, "We know. All Weasleys have red hair."

"All of you?" Christopher asked incredulously. "Merlin, if I wanted ginger kids, I'd be gearing for you even though you've threatened my virility."

Ginny burst out laughing at the word "virility" while Charlie scowled at his friend. "She's taken."

"Oh?" Christopher asked, "Where is he, then? Letting you spend Christmas out in the wilds of Romania with a bunch of blokes and dragons, I mean. He must not be very responsible."

"He's Harry Potter," Charlie spoke around a mouthful of ham, and Christopher spewed his coffee into a puddle on his plate, soaking his eggs in dark liquid.

"Sorry, _what_?" He reached for a napkin and wiped at his burnt cheek. "_The_ Harry Potter?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "He's just an idiot boy."

"He's Harry Potter," Christopher said, lowering his napkin and staring at Ginny. "You're dating Harry Potter. Don't tell him I was flirting with you, please. I rather like my face."

Ginny pushed back from the table, picking up her still mostly full plate. "Harry's not my boyfriend. Your face is safe."

"Aren't you going to eat more, Gin?" Charlie called after her as she crossed the hall and dumped her breakfast in the bin, setting the tray on the top, where it cleaned itself before floating back to the kitchen.

She answered him when she returned to her seat, "I don't normally eat much for breakfast. I eat more at lunch."

Charlie considered her for a moment before continuing his own breakfast, and Christopher and he soon started chatting about some problem they were having with the dragons while Ginny sipped her coffee and tried to pay attention, her thoughts continuously drifting back to Harry. And flying.

After a few more minutes of discussion, Charlie pushed back from the table and said, "See you, Christopher. Gin and I are going flying, if anyone comes looking for me."

"Sure." Christopher waved and Ginny hurried to her feet to follow Charlie from the back door of the mess hall, across a small, snow covered courtyard, to the brick building on the other side. Charlie opened the door and Ginny stepped inside to find herself in a long room, its walls lined with broomsticks lying horizontal on metal racks. Charlie walked to the middle of the room and waved his arm as if showcasing the brooms. "What kind would you like? We've got every model from the last Cleansweep to the Firebolt."

"A Cleansweep." Ginny was sick of the speed of the Firebolt, tired of the way the handle felt flawless under her grip – it took so little skill to fly one. She wanted a struggle, she wanted something that made her concentrate on flying, rather than everything that whirled in her mind while she flew.

Charlie raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? Firebolts are great. Have you ever flown one?"

"Yeah." Ginny reached out and took the Cleansweep from Charlie; her fingers went against the grain of the wood and the roughness felt much more real than the perfection of her Firebolt.

"You have?" Charlie pulled one of those flawless broomsticks from the wall and led the way back out of the broom shed, casting a locking charm on the door as they left.

"Harry gave me one," she muttered. "And it's great flying it, but I think there's something missing."

Charlie stared at her. "Harry gave you a broomstick worth more than the Burrow and he won't admit he has feelings for you? What the hell is wrong with him?"

"Look," Ginny mounted her broom and turned to face Charlie, her toes brushing lines into the dusting of snow on the ground. "You wanted to fly, so can we fly already?"

He sighed and nodded, mounting his broom and accelerating up into the freezing air, toward the cloud cover that hazed the morning light into gray. Ginny followed at a slower pace, both because of the inferior speed of her Cleansweep and because she still felt like some sort of barrier had settled between herself and the air, between herself and the broom. She felt lost, and she knew that Charlie could tell that something was off by the time she reached him where he had stopped and turned to watch her ascent.

"What's wrong?" he asked, and she scowled.

"If I knew, Charlie, I would have fixed it ages ago. I can't really describe it. It's sort of like I'm separated from everything around me – like I'm here, on the broom, like I'm doing everything I know I'm supposed to, but somehow my mind isn't connected to any of it. It's all very…" she waved her right hand in the air, searching for the word, "distant. Yeah. Everything's distant."

"Distant," Charlie repeated.

Ginny nodded.

"Huh." He looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. "I have no idea what's going on with you, Gin, but why don't we just fly? It's not like you're about to fall off the broom, or anything, you just look a bit…less fluid than usual. And I'm not about to chuck a quaffle to you, or anything."

"Well, that's good. I've had nightmares about quaffles for ages."

Charlie laughed and directed his broomstick to swoop lower, hovering over the treetops as Ginny spurted forward to catch up. "What, do they chase after you, or something?"

"Quaffles can be quite terrifying, Charlie. Don't joke."

"I'm being _quite_ serious." Charlie grinned over his shoulder and added, "Come on, I want to show you something."

She followed him, her instincts controlling her movements and her fingers tense on the Cleansweep's rough handle. She followed Charlie despite the sorrow that slowed her movements, despite the painful feeling of nostalgia for the days when flying felt more natural than walking.

They flew for what felt like hours, over a few areas of the forest where the air above the trees was heated with dragon fire, and Charlie pulled his Firebolt up, out of the way of the creatures' breath. "We're almost there," he called over his shoulder after a particularly steep climb above a hot pocket of air.

He stopped a few moments later, and Ginny pulled up to hover beside him. The trees dropped off at the edge of a cliff and the air was clear and it fell down, down, _down_ the steep granite edge of the cliff, down to a valley of white and back up, up to the timberline and past it, to more granite and more snow and Ginny couldn't breathe.

"Gorgeous, isn't it?" Charlie asked, but Ginny didn't turn to look at him, she couldn't, because heaven was before her, the sublime was before her, and she needed this place to be engraved in her mind, she needed to remember that it existed, she needed, she needed, she _needed _to know that beauty lived on, that the world was more eternal than the last two years had made it seem.

She drew in a jagged breath, a mouthful of ice crystals, and Charlie was beside her, his hand on her shoulder and his fingers gripping tightly, "Are you all right?"

The tears froze on her frost-reddened cheeks, but she nodded. She blinked quickly, releasing more icy droplets and taking it all in one last time before slowly turning her broom and looking back at the carpet of pine that spread out before them, the patches of billowing smoke that floated upward, and she nodded again. "You're lucky," she told Charlie when she could talk.

"Lucky?" he asked, turning his Firebolt with a quick touch and facing the trees with her. "How so?"

"All of this," she told him. "You have all of this…and you'll never forget."

"Forget what?"

"That the world is worth it." She leaned forward and her Cleansweep whooshed forward. Charlie waited a few moments before following. Watching her fly was like watching an inexperienced ice skater attempting an axel – awkward and strange but somehow hopeful, too.

She was waiting for him in the courtyard, and her eyes were clear, her skin scrubbed clean, her smile fixed. "Thanks, Charlie."

"You're welcome." Because what else was there to say? He could have asked what she had meant, why she had cried, how she felt flying back. He could have asked her whether she had any backup plans for her future, whether she believed that Harry was ever going to come round, whether she sometimes went to bed hoping that she wouldn't wake up in the morning. But those questions would have bruised her, cut her, broken her, and he wasn't about to harm his sister. So he said "You're welcome," and led her back into the mess hall for a lunch that she barely touched.

Charlie didn't wake her up quite as early the next morning; he waited until after they had fed the dragons before dragging her out of bed with the promise of tea that he had stolen from Colin and a reminder that it was Christmas Eve. He took her down into the nearby town, where every building was built out of stone or brick or something inflammable, and where the only people under thirty were tourists hoping to see a dragon fly overhead.

They flew there, and this time Ginny selected an old model of the Nimbus, but it didn't make a difference. She thought she heard Charlie mutter, "It's not the broom," when she summoned the Nimbus 2000 from its rack in the broom shed, but she ignored him.

The town was what Ginny had expected, and when she and Charlie left the pub after a late lunch she turned to face him, her eyes accusatory. "Why haven't you ever invited me up here before? It's wonderful."

Charlie rolled his eyes. "Because you're always doing something else whenever Mum and Dad come to visit. I never thought you'd want to come, anyway."

"Oh." She smiled at him. "Well, I love it. For the record. And," she hesitated before continuing, "it's nice spending time with you."

"You too, Gin. You ready to head back to the reserve?"

Ginny was already on her broom, but Charlie sped past her this time, allowing the Firebolt to forge the way through the late December air. When Ginny landed in the courtyard she was trying hard to keep a scowl on her face, but at Charlie's raised eyebrow she burst out laughing. "I don't think it's the broom."

"I guess not."

Ginny and Charlie Floo called the Burrow that night, and between Mrs. Weasley's tears and Bill's attempts at jokes and Harry's and Ron's and Hermione's strangely awkward comments they managed to wish their family a happy Christmas without crying themselves.

"What do you want to do?" Ginny asked, falling back on her heels as the fire flickered orange and Charlie heaved a sigh of relief at having finished the Floo call. "Your friends are probably having a party, right? Do you want to go? If you don't want me to come, I can just…" she waved a hand around the kitchen, "stay here."

Charlie snorted. "Ginny, when are you going to get it through your head that I like spending time with you? Everyone will just be outrageously pissed, anyway. I'd rather just stay here, drink some Firewhiskey, and spend Christmas with my family. Or you, because you're all I've got here. And I don't particularly want to Floo call the others again."

"Can I have Firewhiskey too?"

"You're of age."

Charlie poured out shot glasses for both of them, and soon they were lying on their backs on the stone floor by the fire, staring up at the wooden beams of the ceiling and talking about childhood Christmases.

"Ron always cried," Charlie remembered. "Every Christmas, without fail, something would happen that would make him start wailing like a baby."

"That was usually Fred and George's fault," Ginny pointed out. "They got him something spider related for Christmas every year until Mum started checking their gifts before they wrapped them, and even then they'd sometimes manage to sneak something in."

"Do you know," Charlie started, "I sometimes forget that he's gone."

"Me too," Ginny sighed, "And I wish I didn't. It always hurts so much more when I remember, when I think something like, _Wait until Fred hears about this_, and then…"

"And then you realize he won't ever hear about it." Charlie sat up suddenly, "Will you come into town with me?"

"Why?" Ginny sat up a little more slowly – Charlie's small kitchen was moving a lot faster than she thought it should. His kitchen shouldn't have been moving at all, surely.

"I want a tattoo."

"A tattoo," Ginny repeated, rising slowly to her feet and gripping the table with pale fingers. "Of what?"

"Just a simple one. A remembrance one."

Ginny nodded. "All right, I'm game. Lead the way, wise one."

"Not you, though," Charlie warned as he tugged a jacket on and tossed Ginny her worn coat. "Mum would kill me."

"Oh, no. You get one, I get one. Mum won't know, I promise."

"Fine." They went out into the cold winter night and Charlie grabbed Ginny's hand. She looked at him for a moment before he said harshly, "I'm sober enough to apparate, I promise."

"Whatever you say." She shut her eyes and felt the familiar feeling of being squeezed very tightly by the icy air, and then they were in a stone building with fairy lights glowing in the window and moving tattoo designs adorning the walls.

"Ah, our first Christmas customers!" A woman covered in so many swirling designs that Ginny felt nauseous just looking at them swept through a beaded curtain at the back of the store and waved her wand to brighten the lights of the room. Ginny shut her eyes for a brief moment as Charlie left her side and crossed the room.

"Hello, Dray."

"Charlie Weasley! I never thought I'd see you in here. Anyone else on the reserve, sure, even little Colin, but not _you_. What can I do for you? And your friend?"

"My little sister, Ginny." Charlie waved Ginny forward and she crossed the room, her right hand in her pocket and gripping her wand, wishing inexplicably for the cool stone floor of Charlie's home against her back and the burn of Firewhiskey on her throat.

"Ginny. It's nice to meet you." The woman extended a small hand covered in a blue design of flocking seagulls, and Ginny shook her hand quickly, turning her gaze to the woman's eyes, which were the only really stationary things on her body.

"You too," she managed, before the woman turned back to Charlie and Ginny was left staring at a bare spot on the counter.

"So," Dray repeated, "What can I do for you?"

"I just want a simple tattoo." Charlie tapped his left shoulder blade with a burnt hand, "Just 'Fred' in blue letters."

"Easy enough. I can make it more intricate, if you'd like?" Dray waved Charlie to one of the chairs, and he sat down, his right hand gripping the end of the armrest so tightly his fingers turned white.

"No, simple is best."

"All right. Does your sister want anything, or is she just here to be sure you don't cry like a baby?" Dray had her wand out, and she was wiping it carefully with a silk cloth.

Ginny had already sat down in the other chair, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes on the beaded curtain. She spoke to the air, "I want the same thing. Except, can you make mine black?"

"Of course." Dray turned to the curtain and called into the back, "Come on out, Vlad, I need you to get off your lazy arse and do some work!" She turned to Ginny and smiled, "He's really not bad, he just needs a bit of motivation."

"Sure," Ginny said faintly as a tiny man came out of the back.

"Oy, you're a bit tall. Going to need to lower the chair." And she was sinking as the man came over and began cleaning his wand with the silk cloth that Dray had dropped on the counter.

Dray and Vlad began the tattoos at the same moment, and their wands left the raw colored skin at the same second. Ginny didn't flinch, she dug her nails into her thigh and thought about Fred's laugh and George's ear and the stillness of the world when one brother was gone from it, and she noticed how Charlie's hands looked so pale as they held onto his chair as Dray moved her wand across his shoulder. And then it was done and Dray kissed Charlie on the cheek and Vlad shook Ginny's hand and they were all wishing each other a happy Christmas and no money was exchanged because, as Vlad pointed out with a pitying smile, "It's _Christmas_."

The sun woke her up the next morning, its bright rays glancing off the snow and through Charlie's window and directly into her eyes, setting her brain on fire and her shoulder aching and her throat begging for something to drink. She rolled from beneath the covers and stumbled down the stairs, not caring about the noise she made as she made it blindly to the kitchen and pulled the icebox open, grabbing a pitcher of lemonade that she had made days ago and pouring it into a glass with her eyes barely open.

She gulped it down and turned to see Charlie sitting at the table, looking too awake and fully dressed and as if he had already been out of the house, with his eyes bright and his cheeks flushed and his lips curved into a smile. "Dragons still need to be fed on Christmas."

"Right," she mumbled after she finished the drink. "Do you want any lemonade?"

He shook his head. "How's the shoulder?"

"It hurts a bit." Ginny poured herself another glass before replacing the pitcher in the icebox. "How's yours?"

"Same." He paused for a moment before asking, "Want to take today off from flying?"

"If you do. I'll be fine for flying in a few minutes, though."

"We'll go, then. There're some packages by the stairs from home. Do you want to open them before or after?"

Ginny grinned, "Might as well break in the new sweater with a broomstick ride, right?"

But it wasn't really the sweater she wanted, and Charlie knew it. She put her ivory sweater to the side after glancing at the front – which his mother had knitted with a golden broomstick – and opened the rest of her packages – perfume and a necklace and book and some candy – fighting to keep her expression from falling into disappointment. Nothing from Harry, he could tell from the way she gathered the gifts in her arms and walked upstairs, muttering something about being ready to go in a few moments.

But when she came back down she was dressed in her new jumper and smiling. "Ready?"

This time she took a Firebolt, and neither of them spoke as they kicked off from the ground and soared upward into the blue of the Christmas air. Her flying was still flawed, but as she spiraled down to dodge some migrating birds, Charlie thought it was really only a matter of time until his sister flew like the miracle she was.

_iv. what was lost has just been found_

A week later, Ginny was able to convince her brother to go to the reserve's New Year's Party. He had wanted to stay in and celebrate with her, both New Year's and the fact that she had managed to fly effortlessly that day, but she told him, "Charlie, I don't _want_ you to stay in. I want you to go out and have fun with your friends, and I want to spend the night alone, getting caught up on sleep and reading and getting myself put together to go back to school. If you do not go out and have a good time, I swear to Merlin I will Avada Kadavra your arse. Okay?"

And he had muttered, "Fine," because Ginny's eyes flashed like their mother's when she was angry and, besides, he did rather want to see his mates.

If his sister wanted to spend her night wallowing – because that's what she would be doing, he knew – then she ought to be allowed to.

But when he stumbled back into his house at two in the morning of January first, the house was silent and dark. The light in Ginny's room was off, and when he opened the door a crack to check on her she was asleep.

He went back downstairs and collapsed at his table, wondering if maybe Ginny _hadn't_ spent her evening wallowing after all, and he was just about to make his way toward the couch when his fire glowed green and a figure whirled through it and onto his floor.

As the boy, man, whatever, sat up and straightened his glasses, Charlie considered how much finagling it would take to remove his fire from the Floo Network. If people just kept dropping in on him whenever they pleased, it might have been worth it.

But then the man stood and Charlie waved a hand, inviting the Potter boy to take a seat at the extra chair at his table. Harry smiled sheepishly and sat down in it. "It's just struck midnight at home. I hadn't thought about the time difference."

Charlie nodded, "Sure."

"Would it be all right if I talked to Ginny?"

"Are you drunk?" Charlie asked shrewdly, and all right, maybe he was not quite sober himself, but he hadn't Flooed while drinking.

"No." Harry shook his head. "It's just. It's the New Year. I couldn't start it without talking to her."

"You've really messed up, though." Charlie stood and crossed to his sink, filling a glass with water and drinking it quickly. "You've waited a long time."

"I know. She's angry with me, I know. You're probably pissed at me, too. Bill already gave me a long speech, and Percy sat me down for the most bloody-awkward talk of my life, although the one with your dad might have beat him out if I hadn't managed to get him off topic by mentioning rubber ducks." He paused before adding, "And Ron's already slugged me, early on for good measure, he said."

Charlie laughed. "Well, I won't put you through another one of those, then. But if you hurt her, Potter, you'll wish Voldemort had finished you off."

Harry nodded. "I will."

"Go on up." Charlie gestured toward the stairs. "Her door is the first one on the second floor. She's asleep, though."

Harry nodded and stood, moving silently toward the stairs and up them, his hand soft on the doorknob to Ginny's room. He pushed it open and stood in the doorway for a moment, staring into the darkness and listening to the catch of Ginny's breath in her sleep. Feeling a bit creepy, he crossed the room and knelt beside her bed, pushing some red hair behind her ear with cool fingers and murmuring, "Gin," softly enough that he hoped he wouldn't scare her.

Her eyes opened slowly, and she squinted at him for a moment before sitting quickly, her hands flying up to smooth her hair and her eyes wide as they stared at him. "Harry?"

"Happy New Year," he replied, and barely managed not to burst into nervous laughter at the incredulous look on her face.

"What are you doing here?" She moved closer to the pillows and patted the empty space on the quilt beside her, and Harry moved to sit on the bed, one foot tapping a nervous beat against the floor.

He shrugged. "I wanted to see you."

"It's late, isn't it?" She glanced at the dark window and reached for her wand on the bedside table. She waved it to turn on the lights and turned to squint at him again. "You wanted to see me," she repeated, then shrugged. "I got a tattoo," she said, conversationally, and Harry blinked at the abrupt change in subject.

"Did you?" he asked, and she nodded and tugged down the collar of her oversized shirt so he could make out the small, bold black letters that barely took up any space on her freckled skin but nonetheless stood out like the north star: **FRED. **

"It's brilliant, Gin."

"Isn't it?" She smiled at him. "Can't let Mum know, obviously, but Charlie got one and I couldn't just watch him without getting one myself."

"No, no, you never were good at sitting on the sidelines."

She looked at him in silence for a long moment, then asked again, "Why're you really here?"

He moved slightly, so that he was facing her, and his eyes caught hers with their earnest gaze. When he spoke, his voice sounded more serious and more honest than she'd heard him in months. "I never stopped loving you; I just forgot how to show you."

"I know." She reached up with steady fingers and traced designs down his cheeks with her fingertips.

"I'm better now."

"I know." She brought her right index finger to his forehead and traced over the lightning bolt scar.

He closed his green eyes, "You know a lot."

She nodded, even though his eyes remained closed and he couldn't see her. "Do _you_ want to know something?"

"What?" And his eyes opened again, staring into her hazel ones and begging.

"I can fly again."

His smile was glorious and only barely marred by the slightest shadow of disappointment in his eyes. "That's brilliant, Ginny."

She slid from beneath the covers and reached for her new jumper, which she had thrown on the floor after coming in from flying that afternoon and tugged it on, sticking her wool socked feet into boots and grabbing Harry's hand. "Come with me?"

He didn't respond, just followed her from the stairs and grinned at how silly she looked with her finger pressed to her lips as they crept passed the living room where Charlie was snoring and she pushed open the front door and she flinched at the creak of the hinge but Charlie didn't wake up. And then they were in the frostbiting air and the moon was full and she took Harry's hand in her own and led him through the trees, her wand providing a bit of light as she took the familiar path to the broom shed and unlocked the door in silence and pushed him into the warmth before summoning two Firebolts and handing him one.

"Will you fly with me, Harry?"

"Always, Gin."

The stars shone sharply in the sky and Ginny spun upward, her grace natural, real, returned. She turned and hovered, looking down at Harry until he flew up to join her.

"I love you too, you know." Ginny told him.

His hand met hers in the darkness, and his lips followed seconds later. They hung in the air, two black figures silhouetted against a blanket of stars, lovers found and lost and found again in a vast world.

**A/N:** I hope you liked! I appreciate and love receiving reviews! :)


End file.
